


All Paths Lead To The Abyss

by captnstarshine



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Demons, Dream Sharing, Established Relationship, Found Family, Gen, Humor as a coping mechanism, Light Angst, M/M, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Magic, Major Character Injury, Not Really Character Death, POV Alternating, Purple Hawke, The Fade, canon timeline? i don't know her, the fade is a tricky bastard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-02 07:44:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17260301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captnstarshine/pseuds/captnstarshine
Summary: In the vast, incomprehensible Fade, Hawke is alone. Mostly. On Thedas, a group of far-flung friends and associates manage, somehow, to scrape together a plan to save one of their own—and, by happy accident, the world.Hawke shakes himself. “Well, now you’re just being maudlin,” he says aloud, chiding. “If youdohave to spend the rest of eternity trapped here with only yourself for respectable company, the least you can do is not be an arse about it.”





	All Paths Lead To The Abyss

**Author's Note:**

> I love one (1) Merry Band of Misfits - and their Magic Purple People Leader.

The Nightmare’s realm is, in a word, unsettling.

Although, Hawke muses, given the right spin? It could easily be made to seem like an exotic vacation destination.

Instead of jagged spires of rock jutting like broken teeth into the bile-green sky, or cascading falls of putrid green water apparently without source, for example: _a unique and untamed landscape, perfect for the avid hiker or adventurer_.

The clusters of ruined structures like a city half-submerged into the rock, statues towering overhead with eyes like pits that seem to follow your every move, and to which an ancient horror clings like mist: _a must-see for the history buff_.

And, oh, the lake. Unnaturally green (as seems to be the theme), lapping gently at the rocky corpse-strewn banks. And above, the not-sun hanging bright and eternal, haloed by great hunks of rock housing towers with twisting stone staircases which slowly turn and bob in the air as if buoyant in water.

_The perfect spot for a romantic evening with your special someone. Book now! Rooms in our floating towers are exclusive and limited._

Put that way, it almost sounds charming.

With that optimistic thought, Hawke’s legs give out.

He manages not to go head-first into a pool of muck, but the impact of hard ground beneath his knees shudders up his body and jars his ribs. He gasps from the pain that lances through him, vision going momentarily black.

He’s no healer, but he’s been in the care of one often enough to pick up a thing or two. _That_? Decidedly worrying.

Hawke pants through his nose, biting down on a groan.

Out in the open, where a million beady little demon eyes can see him, isn’t the place for weakness.

Blinking until his vision clears is all the respite he affords himself. Then, gritting his teeth, Hawke plants his staff’s blade into the rocky ground. It takes several false starts and some cursing that Hawke flatters himself by imagining would make even Isabela blush, but with a great heave and no small amount of willpower, Hawke draws himself back to standing.

For a breath, he surveys the landscape past the new dots clouding his vision.

He’s been slowly re-tracing the path the Inquisitor’s party had made several hours—hours?—ago, for lack of any better option. Outlandish plans of action even in the face of the unknown or very dire, very strange circumstances are usually his strong suit, it’s true. And it is nearly a comfort that the lack of direction he feels now is not _un_ familiar.

Even so. He’d murder a man in cold blood for a blighted map.

Thus far he’s slowly dragged himself through the cave outside Nightmare’s lair, where the water was knee-deep and rotten root systems hung down from the low ceiling like grasping fingers. So close he’d stooped, feeling caged.

Water—or whatever it is—still drips off his clothes, squelches in his boots. The urge to strip down and dry them out with a bit of fire magic is strong; the last thing he needs right now is foot rot. Things being as they are, though, he settles for giving the standing pools beyond the cave a wide berth. As he passes one particularly offensive pool, he narrows his eyes at the fine mist that curls across the top, and sneers at the periodic bursts of green-blue flame that, like bubbles, pop to the surface.

Beyond the cave and water are ravines made of rock and strange buildings, crowded together like beehives. Keyhole windows gleam from within—firelight, Hawke would say, except it does not flicker.

Below yet another screaming statue—hands grasping at a face frozen in abject terror and misery—is a figure. Glowing gold, amorphous.

 _A dreamer_ , Hawke thinks. Like the ones the Inquisitor had stopped to investigate. Whose nightmares were writ onto stone or paper, and who, when the right overture was made, disappeared—comforted, somehow. Freed from this place.

Slow and laboriously, Hawke approaches.

As Hawke draws closer the dreamer seems to take shape. They have skeletal limbs, transparent. The dreamer is curled up tight, knees pressed to their face.

Searching for a clue earns him words in the rock, written as if by fingers in clay and glowing faintly the same color as the dreamer’s figure.

_They’ve given me all the blankets and cloaks to spare, but it does nothing. I am so tired. I feel it still, claws of ice grasping and dragging me down below the water. It hurts, it hurts to breathe. ‘Think about a fire,’ she tells me. I try, but my thoughts are slow and I can’t...I can’t remember what it is to be warm._

Without thinking too much about it, Hawke takes off the dirty, torn red sash at his waist. Bundles it up in his hands and places it at the dreamer’s feet in an empty circle of stones. He doesn’t bother casting around for something—a torch or tinderbox, perhaps—the Fade has produced and kept maddeningly out of reach of this poor soul; he has his own methods, a warmth untainted by this place. Hawke conjures an orange-red flame into his palm. It catches, spreading steadily through the cloth. As it does, the dreamer uncurls, then fades into a shower of embers that float away on a nonexistent wind.

Hawke lets out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s something.”

At least some of these souls won’t be doomed to remain here forever. Coveted for their misery, bound to and lost in the labyrinthine depths of the Fade for eternity.

Maker.

Maybe he should’ve just let the Nightmare kill him and have done with it. A proper heroic end, dying in the throes of battle with the enemy.

Hawke shakes himself. “Well, now you’re just being maudlin,” he says aloud, chiding. “If you _do_ have to spend the rest of eternity trapped here with only yourself for respectable company, the least you can do is not be an arse about it.”

Hawke makes to stand again, retracting his hand from the warmth of the flames, when something catches his attention.

A lick of flame clings to his fingers.

Not unusual, exactly. Hawke and fire are well-acquainted. Friends, of a kind. Casting fireballs and the like about usually leave a few tendrils of flame or embers in the aftermath. They dissipate on their own not long after or can be willed away easily. It is that familiarity that tells Hawke something about this flame feels different.

Hawke stares at the flame. He waves his hand a little. In response, the flame warps and flickers but clings stubbornly on. Hawke attempts to dispel it willingly, but that does nothing either. Out of sheer curiosity, he wipes his hand on his pants leg to see if it will catch.

It doesn’t.

“Huh,” Hawke says slowly. “Fascinating. I’ll just put that on the fucking list, shall I.”

As Hawke grips his staff, the flame curls along the backs of his knuckles and stays there. Hawke can feel its heat, hot but not burning.

“Come on, then,” he tells it.

With one last look at the screaming statue and the empty space where the dreamer once was, Hawke presses on.

“It’s just you and me, now,” Hawke tells the flame, perhaps because he’s already half-mad with loneliness. “Poor choice on your part, casting your lot in with mine. All I have to my name is a pointy stick, rugged good looks, and questionable humor.”

Not much to be getting on with, but Hawke’s made do with less. Hasn’t he?

There’s a sour feeling in his belly that makes his mouth twist; a little rueful, a little angry.

There’s no one to blame, except maybe himself.

Hawke had volunteered to stay behind with the open-eyed understanding that it would likely—more than likely—be the last thing he ever did. Inquisitor Adaar allowed him that choice, knowing she would return to Adamant one body short. There’d been no time for weepy goodbyes or so much as a warrior’s handshake, but Alistair had spared Hawke a look that said enough.

That he’s still here, alive and breathing—albeit with difficulty and not a little pain—is as shocking to himself as it would be to anyone.

Maybe that was it, the shock. Maybe that was why he’d sat down, in a pool of blood and muck and ichor, and stared at the place the Inquisitor’s rift had been for—well, it doesn’t matter how long.

Pathetic, really. Though he’d like to believe he’s earned the right, by now.

“I suppose there are worse places to spend eternity,” Hawke says with forced cheer, though he can’t imagine what they might be. The Bone Pit, maybe. “I’ll say this, at least no one’s arguing amongst themselves about my sense of direction, five feet behind me. Where’s the respect?”

Something moves on his left.

Hawke raises his staff, grip white-knuckled. Nothing happens except that Hawke sways, unsteady.

Hawke glares into the gloom, but all remains quiet and still. A trick of the light?

“Was that _you_?” he hisses at the little flame. From its perch it flickers in response.

Sighing raggedly, Hawke succumbs to fatigue, leaning heavily on his staff again. Adrenaline drains from him as quickly as it came.

Since Nightmare was punted away to Maker-knows-where by the magical gale force wind of the rift’s closing, and since Hawke stumbled dazedly around the empty battlefield until his senses returned to him, demons have made themselves scarce. The opposite of comforting, truth be told. Hawke knows they must still be there, watching him. Biding their time. Waiting for Nightmare to return and command them, maybe, though Hawke can’t imagine how or why lesser demons would do so. Hawke is, after all, the only living being in the entirety of the Fade. A hot commodity. Irresistible.

Are lesser demons capable of exercising restraint? Patience? Caution? Is this something else entirely?

Academics of a certain ilk would salivate for the chance to be in Hawke’s shoes, he’s sure. Maybe he should start taking notes, write a book. He could brandish it in front of Solas mockingly upon his return, and when Solas asks to see it, eat the entire blighted tome like a madman. Genius.

Probably, he should just thank the Maker for small blessings and take the temporary respite for what it is. But he’s all too aware of the tenterhooks he’s on. And the longer he spends alone in the Fade the more... untethered he feels.

Like he’s out to sea, down two oars and with a sail in tatters. Also, there’s a hole in the hull, all he has to bail water with is a cheese cloth, and something is on fire.

About covers it.

Hawke pauses for breath before a tall, broken staircase cut into the side of a small mountain of gleaming greenish-black stone, laced through with veins of silver and red.

“Let’s play, ‘is it Fade shenanigans or blood loss’?” he mutters, as the landscape seems to shift while he stares.

Maker, his head hurts.

Shelter. That’s the order of the day. He may not have a real hope of escape or the faintest idea what he’s going to do after a bit of rest, but it isn’t his intention to walk in circles ruing the day he developed a damning sense of responsibility and self-sacrifice until he expires, either.

Irony at its worst, Hawke thinks. He wouldn’t appreciate it at all, and neither would Fenr—

Hawke forcefully slams the metaphoric lid on that train of thought.

Anyway, there are an abundance of residences down any number of winding passages, but Hawke would sooner disparage Bianca to Varric’s face than knock on any of the doors. No. An empty, relatively dry cave will do. In fact, that sounds downright marvelous.

“I guess it’d be too much to ask that you know a nice spot to rest for a while?” Hawke asks the flame. “No, no. Take your time. Think on it.”

Measuring the passage of time by the number of steps he takes is as good a measurement as any, he decides. In fact, he isn’t entirely sure it isn’t the perfect measure of time here, since _steps taken_ don’t account for _distance traveled_ , anyway.

It takes either twenty-five hundred or twenty-nine hundred-and-something (he lost count) to reach the low-lying plateau he’d thought was only a stones-throw away. Then after another eighty-seven steps he lurches up a steep embankment and approaches what looks like a promising residence.

Staff brandished in front of him, Hawke calls: “I do love what you’ve done with the place. Very rustic. Are those real, authentic acid pockmarks?”

The only reply is an eerie echo. Even so, Hawke doesn’t lower his guard as he limps further into the cave.

The ground is damp, coated in a fine sheen of liquid. But there are no standing pools that he can see. The walls and ceiling are porous and rough, like something has been eating away at them. It isn’t a deep cave, and there are no hidey-holes that he can find.

It is, blessedly, empty. And furthermore, in a serviceably defensible position.

“This is bound to turn out poorly,” he says.

Dredging up the bit of mana he’s been able to recuperate (less, he thinks, than he should have), Hawke weaves a barrier and sets it in place at the mouth of the cave. That done, he carefully—if ungracefully—collapses back onto his arse. His whole body feels like one flayed nerve. The pain is, for a moment, largely overshadowed by how absolutely fucking fantastic it feels to just let his legs splay out in front of him. All his aching, trembling muscles coming to rest at last.

Never has bare, broken rock felt so utterly divine—if he closes his eyes, he can imagine he’s splayed on an Orlesian bed, made of down feathers and silk sheets.

He nods off right there, sitting upright, waking only to catch himself as his body starts to slump over.

Hawke scrubs his hands through his hair, then grimaces. It’s matted. His hands are filthy. _He’s_ filthy.

Wiping his dirty hands on his equally dirty pants is functionally useless, but nonetheless satisfies him. Gingerly, he lays himself down on the ground, nestled against the far wall of the cave. He can see the cave mouth from this position, and a bit of what lies beyond the barrier—swirling, flickering, warping the image of the landscape beyond and painting the Fade’s green color palate something more purple. A moderate improvement.

With the very last dregs of his strength and mana, Hawke performs the weakest, most basic healing spell in recorded history (or _un_ recorded, as it were). Hopefully, it will turn at least one of his broken ribs into something less imminently life-threatening.

Anders would weep, if he could see Hawke now. Maker, what he wouldn’t give to get an earful of Anders’ ranting about Hawke standing to learn a thing or two about healing magic for the next time he inevitably got himself in over his head, right about now.

Hawke finds himself smiling and sobers quickly.

Oh.

Fantasizing about being raked over metaphoric coals by his friends? Now Hawke knows his mood is dire, indeed.

Mana utterly spent, like a flame sputtering out of existence, he’s unconscious even before the magic has finished fading from his fingertips.

-

“Where’s Hawke?” Varric asks again, as if he doesn’t understand the empty space behind the Inquisitor. As if he can’t read the barely-concealed pity in the grim lines of her face.

“Hawke died a hero,” Adaar says. Her voice is steady and carries easily across the hushed group of weary onlookers. Demoralized Wardens, gray-faced Inquisition forces. Alistair, whose face is, for once, an unreadable mask. “He sacrificed himself not because he swore an oath, but because someone needed to do it.”

A fine way of putting it.

_Once again, Varric, Hawke is in danger because of you._

“Well,” he says, and stops. Bile rises in his throat, choking him.

“Varric,” says Cassandra, almost gentle, “I’m—”

Varric turns away. He tells himself not to, but he can’t quite smother the urge—he looks over his shoulder. Hope a desperate, impossible thing.

Inquisitor Adaar is already speaking to the Senior Warden who approaches her, looking for guidance.

The place behind her where the rift had been torn open is now empty. The air doesn’t so much as shimmer faintly, the way Varric knows it sometimes does: like a fading scar.

There is precious little time to mourn.

Warden Alistair leaves for Weisshaupt before the dust has finished settling, the wound in his side healed as much as a half a bottle of potion and a quick set of bandages can manage. He strikes out northward on the fastest horse the Inquisitor can spare, with his sword, shield, and a satchel full of provisions hastily scraped together.

Erimond is to be tried at Skyhold and kept in chains under heavy guard for the time being. The Wardens are called allies, again, their numbers bolstering the thinned ranks of the Inquisition.

A victory, some call it. To Varric it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, burns like salt in the wound, for the heavy price at which they come.

Maybe it’s the grief talking, but, well: he’d give them all up, to a man, for Hawke.

Overseeing the clean-up, tending to the wounded, preparing for the return journey to Skyhold and conducting Inquisition business even in the interim keeps Inquisitor Adaar busy. Which is good, because Varric doesn’t know what he’d say to her right now, given the chance. It wouldn’t be generous, and that’s reason enough for Varric to keep his distance while his stomach settles.

The dead are buried or set to the funerary pyre without much in the way of ceremony. Cassandra suggests, tentative, a rite for Hawke. A recited verse.

Varric blanches.

“Seeker,” he rasps, “I can’t think of anything he’d like less.”

Varric can’t think of anything he’d like less, either. Ceremony and rites are too final, too soon. Too stuffy. Hawke deserves boisterous laughter at a fireside, raised glasses, and someone shouting, “to Hawke! A mad bastard, and the best of us.”

The Inquisitor presides over a makeshift war table—no more than a few unbroken crates draped in cloth over which a map is spread, held down by a knife, a tankard, and several stones broken off the battlements—with Cullen and Cassandra. Couriers flit in and out of the Fortress, swift as birds in flight.

The Inquisition is a well-oiled machine, by now.

“It’s impressive.” Hawke admitted, privately, as they’d stood on Skyhold’s battlements and watched the bustle below as all made ready for the long march to Adamant, just three weeks past. He’d gone on to complain about the general floorplan and décor before circling back, sobering again. “The Inquisitor has a good head on her shoulders, I think. But, well. You know how these things go. Good intentions, roads paved with them. Stones starting avalanches. Pick your metaphor.”

There’d been a haunted look in his eye, the temporary cure for which had been a pint of ale over a brief and ill-fated game of Diamondback, followed by long hours spent trading ribald jokes and lovingly disparaging their friends.

A fleeting smile curves Varric’s mouth at the memory.

In the immediate aftermath of the siege, Varric busies himself doing menial labor among the soldiers; there is plenty to do.

Salvaging goods and equipment, setting up requisition stations and tents, and cots for the wounded. Scrounging for enough provisions to feed and water the sorry lot. There isn’t enough to go around—the Wardens didn’t expect to need much in the way of provisions, considering, and in the fighting some stores were destroyed.

When the acting-Quartermaster suggests a hunting party, Varric volunteers. Iron Bull, carefully shouldering his way past a huddle of soldiers, joins him.

His enormous hands are freshly bruised and cut, nails caked with grime. Whether from battle or from having single-handedly moved several enormous blocks of broken stone and siege equipment from the battlements, Varric isn’t entirely sure.

Bull shoulders his blade, claps Varric on the shoulder—a heavy weight, but not one meant to knock him about—and they set out through the broken gates with a few other scouts and soldiers eager for work.

They hunt, only speaking when necessary. The sky has been stormy and dark all day, but Varric knows the sun is nearing or below the horizon by now, and their pray is all the harder to find for it. For a few hours’ work they return to the fortress with fennec, hyena, and snake meat enough to make up the difference, Varric hopes.

The smell of cooking fires and cooking meat cannot quite overwhelm the smell of death and decay that lingers, especially potent around the cluster of medical tents.

Varric takes a meager share of food for himself, retreating to a secluded corner. Not because he is hungry, but because he understands he needs to eat, anyway. Bull joins him again, stretching out his legs with a deep-throated groan as he sits for what is likely the first time in—shit. When was the last time _Varric_ sat down? Yesterday morning?

Varric forces himself to ask, “Final count, Tiny?”

Bull chuckles, low. “Sixty-two. Little short of my goal, but we’ll see about the next siege.”

“Damn. Fifty-nine, for me. So I guess I owe you.”

The effort of speaking leaves him winded, chest tight; the words feel dragged out of him. He’s paced and torn at his hair for want of _one_ word in a line of prose, has stumbled over the right thing to say, has even—on occasion—been stunned into complete silence.

This is different.

Bull sips at his own bowl of stew, without so much as a twitch of his good eye to give away what he thinks of the disgusting, watered-down shit, then says, “I didn’t come over here to talk, Varric. Unless you want to.”

Varric scrubs at his face wearily. The relief that washes over him is strong. “No. For once, I’m...not really up to it.”

True to his word, Bull doesn’t say anything more, though they sit there for hours. The necessary work done, soldiers and Wardens come and go: collecting their helping of food and drink. Mismatched sets of cards and dice begin to spread over the ground or on overturned crates, and laughter rises. The kind of laughter borne out of necessity. A little subdued, a little desperate.

Bull takes a tankard when it’s presented to him, pours a little on the broken flagstones with a quiet word in Qunlat Varric doesn’t understand, and tips his head back to drink the rest. He must leave a few mouthfuls, because he offers the tankard wordlessly to Varric.

Just to wash down the taste of the stew, Varric accepts. A few drops of ale splash at his feet, and Varric finishes off the rest.

Bull is steady. His presence helps, as much as anything can.

Fenris needs to know. Carver, too.

Last Varric heard, Aveline had accepted the task at Hawke’s request of seeking him out in the Anderfels and removing him far from Orlais. With the threat to the Wardens past, he’ll be free to return without fear of corruption. Free to raise hell, too, if Varric knows the young Hawke at all.

As for Fenris—well. Call him a coward, but Varric isn’t sorry not to have to do this in person.

Anders would want to know, if Varric could manage it, and Aveline and Merrill and Isabella. Would Sebastian give his letter over to a fire before he could read it? There are a hundred things Varric needs to put to paper, too many people that Hawke loved and who loved him and who deserve to—

Only, the pit in Varric’s stomach leaves him heavy and immobile.

Where would he even begin? What words does he have that could possibly suffice?

Varric gives into the urge, finally. With Bull’s bulk blocking sight of him, mostly, Varric puts his head in his hands.

Hawke was a man larger than life. It is fitting that his absence should leave an impassable gulf, miles and miles wide.

-

**One Month Ago.**

Walking out of the Deep Roads after four months of crawling through abandoned Thaigs and the darkest, deepest recesses a Warden can find to root out networks of Darkspawn is like being borne anew. Carver takes a deep breath—the first breath of fresh, mountain air he’s had in far too long. His lungs ache pleasantly.

“Feels good,” Senior Warden Brandr says, next to him. An understatement.

Behind them a voice calls, “Still kinda dark—you sure we made it to the surface?”

“You see many trees in the Deep Roads, lately?” Carver drawls as Gilraen comes abreast of them.

“Or stars, for that matter.”

“Oh, right. _Stars_. I thought that was little phosphorescent fungi, again.”

The wind blows gently but steadily, a little cold and refreshing. In the east, the faint glow of stars in a deep blue-velvet sky creeps above the tree-tops, edging out the pink and orange of sunset.

“Let’s not dally,” Brandr says, clapping Gilraen’s back soundly. “I know a spot.”

Brandr takes point, with Carver acting rearguard. Sure enough they come to a suitable camping ground after a few hours of travel: a small clearing buttressed up against several boulders. Their group makes camp quickly, Gilraen and Artmand collapsing onto their bedrolls eagerly.

They’ll reach the Keep in three days, if they maintain their current pace. Two and half, if Carver can light a fire under them.

Brandr builds a small campfire with what Carver gathers, puts her heels near the flames to ease their aches. Carver stares into the glow until his eyes water and Brandr breaks the silence with her raspy voice:

“Sovereign for your thoughts?”

“It’ll be a decade since my Joining, come Harvestmere.”

Not insincere, Brandr says, “Happy Anniversary.”

Carver hesitates. “Why did you join the Wardens?”

It isn’t something Wardens talk about, much. By their nature Wardens aren’t of this world, not really. Undertaking the Joining is a burning away of whoever you were, whatever you did, before. It no longer matters. All that is left is duty, and purpose.

Some things are harder to leave behind than others, Carver has found.

“Oh,” says Brandr, angling her face away. The firelight casts deep shadows on her weathered face. “Some might like it if I said I grew up on tales of the Warden’s heroic deeds. Truth is, I didn’t. And I don’t much believe in heroism. Duty? Yes. I believe in duty. Sometimes acts of duty look like valor, but I don’t judge them like that.”

“Ol’ Garahel might’ve agreed with you, there.”

“Mm,” says Brandr, and shakes her head. “’Heroism is another word for horror’? Garahel was concerned with moral determination, not duty.”

“Does it have to be different?”

“Has your sense of duty ever conflicted with your sense of morality? Or perhaps, with your loyalty?”

Schooling his face, Carver does not flinch.

Brandr—and Stroud, for that matter—know about his hasty flight to the Vimmark Mountains, the ink granting his request of leave hardly dry before he’d mounted a horse. And they know about the fucking shitshow with Meredith and Orsino, mere months later.

Only one of those could reasonably be argued falls under the purview of the Order, but that had hardly factored into Carver’s intention to be at Garrett’s side. He’d have gone with or without permission, too.

“In any case, I did not seek out the Wardens because of something so, hm,” Brandr waves her hand vaguely instead of putting a name to it, “as a philosophical quandary.”

“Was it like me, then? Were you going to die?”

“Not quite. Atrophy, not death, is what motivated me. The thought of succumbing to the slow crawl of time, rather than to something I deemed useful—I couldn’t stand it.” She shrugs one shoulder. “I’d been looking for a cause to die for.”

Carver opens his mouth, closes it.

“Well that’s...morbid. Even for a Warden.”

Brandr doesn’t seem to take offense, thankfully. “I’ll say this, I have no intention of throwing myself on the next Darkspawn sword I find.”

“That’s good,” says Carver, lamely. He takes up a stick to poke the fire as it begins to collapse in on itself and dwindle, and chews the inside of his cheek until the words he wants to say come to him.

“Joining the Order wasn’t a choice I made for myself. Isn’t something I would have chosen for myself.”

Brandr says nothing.

“When I killed a Darkspawn for the first time, after,” Carver says, recalling how weak he’d been, barely able to heave his greatsword above his head, yet cutting a swath through the hoard at Stroud’s flank, all the same, “it felt like vengeance. Not valor. Or duty.”

“If memory serves, you were the most singularly-focused ensign I’ve ever met.” It isn’t quite a compliment. Then, “And when you kill Darkspawn now?”

“Purpose. It feels like purpose.” It’s the first time he’s put a word to it aloud, but Carver feels the truth of it in his bones. “I don’t know if I believe in fate, but this is what I’m supposed to do. Watch over Thedas. The people I love. Maker, it’s hard as shit. Every blighted day. But I’m grateful, all the same.”

He wasted a lot of time on bitterness, blaming Garrett for making an impossible choice.

“Something tells me there’s a reason you brought this subject up.”

“I’ve been thinking. About the Order.”

He’s had reason to.

Warden couriers make runs into the Deep Roads, but it is a thankless and dangerous job. Ensuring personal correspondence is given something like equal priority to official missives, Carver’s had to lighten his pocket considerably.

Whispers of a strange, blood-chilling Calling sweeping through the ranks of Orlesian Wardens has reached him that way. Mere days before he put boots to path for Corin’s Keep, but after he’d begun to suspect something was amiss, he’d gotten letters from Varric and from Garrett. A bundle of them, some months old, and Carver had had to swallow down his frustration at that.

Red lyrium. Darkspawn—that, at least, Carver knew. Word of a resurgence came shortly before communication out of Orlais went silent and Senior Wardens began whispering to each other around corners.

Despite the tedious density of Varric’s writing, he’s well-informed—better be, considering his proximity to the Inquisition’s leadership—and even when deliberately vague, Carver can see through the conspicuous omissions well enough.

Corypheus. Corruption within the Wardens.

As for his brother, it isn’t a surprise that Garrett has emerged from a self-imposed exile to embroil himself in this particular crisis. It isn’t a surprise that he’d suggest Carver do the opposite, either.

As if Carver doesn’t have the same or greater responsibility for what might be happening within his own blighted Order. As if Corypheus’ survival isn’t just as much a burden for Carver’s shoulders.

“I’ve been thinking about the Order,” Carver repeats, feeling Brandr’s eyes on him but not meeting them, yet. “Why I serve. How I serve. Duty, and loyalty, like you said. The Order is where I’m meant to be, but...”

But the Order is failing their own. While the First Warden grows fat on the tithes and reverence of the people of the Anderfels, and while the Chamberlain buries herself in the shelves of the archives—more concerned with past glories than with the future of the Order—their Commanders and all those who serve with them suffer.

Carver doesn’t dream of the Warden’s returning to the glory of yesteryear, of flying on Griffonback and having flowers thrown at his feet. Again, and again, his thoughts turn instead to all that the Wardens could yet be.

Responsibility is a tricky thing. Unease churns in Carver’s gut, but he knows this in his bones: The oath Carver swore was to the Order not as it is, but as it should be.

“There’s something more, that I need to do. That _we_ need to do.”

“Which is?”

“Which is what I need to figure out.”

There’s a pause in which Carver sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair, then looks over to study Brandr’s face: the deep etched lines and scars, the steel-gray eyes that never waver. She’s ancient, for a human Warden. Not at all warm, but steady.

“Am I to understand you’re requesting leave to do so?”

“Yes.”

Brandr’s expression is unreadable. Her eyes bore into Carver, searching. A moment passes, and she lays a heavy hand on Carver’s shoulder.

“Whatever the path that brought you here, however much of an insubordinate shit you can be, you do the Wardens proud. You’re going to take some heat for this. But I’ll sign off.”

Carver takes a deep breath. “Good. I mean, thanks.”

She squeezes, hard enough to hurt, and then lets him go.

Carver takes the first watch. Brandr beds down not long after their conversation peters off, and Carver begins the steady work of cleaning his blade for something to do with his hands while his mind still whirls.

Duty. Loyalty.

As much as Carver believes in the oath he swore to the Order, there is another oath he swore long before and which pulls at him. Is there a way to honor both? Carver has tried, before, with mixed success.

He thinks of Garrett’s last letter. The penmanship would have made Mother cringe. Slanting across the page, the paper punctured in places, like it was written over a knee on the back of a moving horse. Not unlikely, considering the circumstances.

“Why don’t you take a vacation?” Garrett had suggested, after warning Carver to stay away from Orlais. “Someplace far. I have it on my own authority that Rivain is beautiful, this time of year. Isabela has a ship, now, you know.”

Carver knows. Per the few letters he’s received from Isabela in the last three years, he apparently has an open invitation.

Garrett had ended with a plea disguised as a joke, and a rare bit of sincerity.

“Don't do anything stupidly brave, little brother. No more than usual, anyway. Don’t think I won’t find out about it—I have eyes and ears everywhere.” Disturbingly true, it would seem. “You may not know this about me, but I’m a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to the people I love. Selfish, too. Indulge me, a little, though. I so rarely get to watch your back, these days.”

He’d signed it, “Miss you. Love, Big H.”

They’ve written sporadically in the years since they’d last seen each other in the flesh. Each of them busy with their own lives and duties. Garrett’s letters always seem weightier than they ought to, tucked away in the bottom of Carver’s pack, wrapped in treated leather to protect them. This last one most of all.

Carver misses his brother. Bitterly, even. It’s easy to admit to, now.

Bethany, and Mother, and Father, are lost to him forever. Carver knows he will never stop aching for those losses, but he has learned to bear them by necessity.

With Garrett, it’s different. His brother isn’t gone from this world, but he is perpetually out of reach. Whether by design or circumstance.

Since they were young, he’s cast a shadow twice his height—and his height isn’t insubstantial. Garrett used his wit to bemuse and befuddle and keep the world at arm’s length. Even Carver. Perhaps especially Carver.

“Blighter,” Carver mutters, without heat.

The real kicker, the custard on top of the sweet cake, is that resolving their differences had to come by way of pain and danger and separation.

Carver wraps his cloak a little tighter around his shoulders. A cloud passes over the moon, casting the camp and forest beyond in darker shadows. Nothing stirs. The sounds of the forest slowly return to his ears, as if the weight of his musings cast a dense fog over his senses. In the distance, an owl hoots. Before him, the campfire has died down to embers and ashes.

Checking the position of the moon, Carver coaxes the fire back to life, and kicks Gilraen’s bedroll to wake her for second watch. Still restless, he spreads his bedroll at the base of the rocks, sits upright against it and continues the work of cleaning and sharpening his blade. The sound of the whetstone over metal is steady, lulls him.

Gilraen is singing at her post, under her breath. It’s off-pitch and terrible, enough to give Carver goosepimples.

“Stop that.”

She startles. “What? _You_ stop. Givin’ me a scare like that. Shouldn’t you be recovering your strength or something?”

“I’m good for it,” he says, frowning. “Just focus on your watch.”

It’s hard to tell in the dark, but he thinks Gilraen gives him the stink-eye.

Two days later, Carver’s squad arrives at Corin’s Keep. They’re sore and complain that Carver is a slave driver, to which he snaps back a cutting remark that grants him a little peace for the final hour of their trek.

Walking under the gates, Brandr gives Carver a slap on his back accompanied by a half-smile. “All this quiet brooding doesn’t suit you,” she says, pitched so the others cannot hear. “Rest. Relax while you can. Send me your request in the morning.”

Wordlessly, Carver inclines his head. He watches Brandr go with the rest of their squad in the direction of the barracks, where they can wash and bed down in comfort at last.

Carver turns on his heel.

It’s true: quiet brooding doesn’t suit him. Carver is a man of action. Head up, eyes forward.

Before he can settle in, there is a quartermaster to visit, couriers to track down, amendments to be made to his report and a request of leave to write—

“Warden Hawke! Warden Hawke, sir.”

Carver turns, coming face-to-face with young Warden-Ensign Harris hurrying up to him, scale mail beneath his blue tabard clanking. His expression is pinched.

“What’s the matter?”

There’s no sign of anything amiss. The guards on duty at the gate were pleasant, if bored; beyond the usual bustle of the Keep, there are no outward signs of distress or odd behavior or circumstance. Carver forces his fists to unclench. He looks over the Warden-Ensign and raises a brow curiously.

“There’s some folk here to see you, sir. Arrived a week ago. Personal matter, I guess. Not any of ours.” He stops, then cannot seem to contain himself: “I don’t want to presume to...Well, um. One of—she’s a fine woman, of course. Though somehow, she’s got four squads of ensign’s running drills on the Crucible every day under her watch. Senior Warden Uladriah hasn’t called it off, so I’m leaving well enough alone, but...”

Carver knows who it is before Harris says it.

“Calls herself Captain Aveline. You know her?”

Carver is a soldier and a Grey Warden—he doesn’t slouch. He finds himself standing up a little straighter, anyway.

“Where is she now?”

-

“Come,” Fenris says, satisfied when Dog abandons her nosing at a patch of muddy earth and hurries to trot at his heels.

Teodren is a moderate town west of the village of Crestwood, squatting along the banks of Lake Calenhad. It thankfully does not reek of the fresh-water fish they trade in and has a serviceable trading post for his needs which he visits first. A tavern, where he now looks to cool his heels and eat, is the most prominent structure.

Proof of the Inquisitor’s long, grasping hand could be found even in the Free Marches. The heraldry is familiar. It decorates a banner caught in a stormy wind, where it stands proud before a cluster of tents bowing heavily under the weight of the rain.

As he steps past and into the tavern, Fenris pulls back his sodden hood.

A dozen or so tables fill the space, well-lit by sconces and a hearth fire that roars in the midst. Before it hangs an array of cloaks, steadily drying out. The noise of scraping chairs, the thump of tankards on wood, the rolling of dice, and conversation are loud. This place will do well for itself, tonight.

Fenris crosses the room to a long, warped bar counter along the far side of the room.

“Good’even,” Fenris greets, only a little stiff.

“Hm.” The barkeep eyes him. For a moment, Fenris believes this is when he will be dismissed as a dangerous traveler—not, strictly, untrue—and stifles an impatient sigh. “You look worn down. How’s the road?”

“Unpleasantly muddy.”

It isn’t the answer the barkeep is looking for, but the hard line of his mouth turns up by the barest fraction.

He takes Fenris’ order and, catching sight of Dog as she steps out from around Fenris’ bulky winter cloak and sniffs the air, beams wide enough to split his face.

“Would you look at this! A blessing upon us all, I had no idea we were in such fine company. It is an honor.”

Fenris plasters a smile on his face, silently willing Dog’s ego not to grow too much even as she preens.

“What’s your name?”

“Her name is Dog.”

The barkeep blinks at Fenris.

“Dog?”

“Save the disparaging looks for the one responsible,” says Fenris, ungenerously, “if you should ever have the dubious pleasure of meeting him.”

At that, the barkeep chortles.

“I mean no offense. Here,” he says, and swiftly gathers together a small banquet of food-stuffs in a large round wooden bowl. He presents it to Dog, who licks her chops theatrically. “On the house.”

“That is generous, but—”

“Don’t speak of it. My ma would rise up out of her grave if she knew I’d met a loyal Mabari and not offered a little token!”

“Perhaps we can trade, then.” Fenris suggests, accepting the bowl on Dog’s behalf. “Do you get much news, this way?”

“Fair bit more than we used to, before the Inquisition set up shop. They’re always sending runners in and out of here. I think maybe we’re a stop-over, for Highever.”

“How have you found the Inquisition?”

The barkeep’s face is open and friendly, now. Ferelden through and through, if the Mabari at Fenris’ side grants him such swift esteem. If he’d harbored any doubt about where his ship had landed, that alone would be enough to dispel them.

“The Herald single-handedly cleared out Crestwood, you know. Never thought I’d see the day. And she’s cleaned up some of the other messes kicking about these lands well enough, too. If that were all, I’d sing her praises up and down.”

“By ‘messes’ you mean the rebel mages and...?”

“Oh, the mages joined up with the Herald, haven’t they? Just before Haven. I’d’ve called it a sign, only it was the Templars who attacked and are, well—” he sucks his teeth, leaning over the counter, “folk are calling them _Red Templars_ , now. For the way their eyes glow and some of them have, you know, giant red crystals growing out of their fucking spines.”

The barkeep shakes his head, eyes wide with incredulity.

 _Lyrium_ , Fenris thinks. “Very strange.”

“No stranger than the sky falling. _Literally_ falling.” The barkeep stands upright again, shrugging helplessly. “Isn’t that odd? Measuring one thing against _that_?”

Fenris hums, noncommittal. Feeds Dog a bit of meat as she whines plaintively at him.

“And the Inquisition has relocated, I hear. Skyhold?”

“Oh, yes. That’s the one. Great big fortress, they say. Somewhere in the Frostbacks. Near the heart, I mean. A few folk from this town have packed up and gone to throw their hat in with the rest.”

“As perilous a journey for allies as for enemies.”

“We’re a hearty bunch.”

“Stubborn, too.”

The way he says it must reveal something, for the barkeep gives him a keen-eyed look and smiles, amused. “Had cause to learn firsthand, have you?”

“Yes.”

There’s a pause, assessing. “Is that where you’re headed, then? To join the Inquisition?”

“Do I look the type?”

It sounds sarcastic, even to Fenris’ own ears, but he finds himself genuinely curious.

“No more or less than the Herald herself does, I suspect.”

Wry, Fenris says, “Fair enough.”

When Dog whines again and nudges Fenris insistently, this time with enough force to tip him a little sideways, Fenris relents.

“That whine is unbecoming of a warrior,” Fenris whispers to Dog. She stares back at him, tongue lolling out. Too impish by far for a hound he’s seen rend flesh and break bone on more occasions than he cares to count.

They find a rickety table and Fenris strips the sword from his back, resting it against the table in easy reach.

Dog lays into her feast bowl eagerly, while Fenris sniffs at his wine with a wrinkled nose before finally daring a sip. It’s truly heinous, which—despite anticipating as much—dampens his spirits in a way the pouring rain couldn’t.

“Right. Coriphilus, that’s what I said.”

“No, no. It’s _Coriphayus_. Do you have ale in your ears?”

One table over, huddled close to the fire, three figures in weather-worn Inquisition armor sit nursing their drinks.

If Fenris is an accurate judge, the one obviously well into her cup—cheeks rosy, body slumped—is a scout of some kind. Durable leathers, patched in places by an unskilled hand. Her boots are of a sturdy kind.

Of the other two, one is a woman with deep-set bags under her eyes and a braid that appears not to have been re-done in several days or possibly a week. Though a little tarnished, she wears armor with the Inquisition’s crest emblazoned across the chest plate. The last is a young man, another scout or perhaps a courier—given the travels satchel slung over the back of the chair—who stares miserably at his cup full of ale and sports a fresh bruise on his face.

The drunk mumbles something unintelligible. Her companion must be well acquainted with the meaning of her mumbling, for she responds. “What? Don’t trust the Herald of Andraste, even now?”

“Ugh. No. Just her sword arm. You can’t beat down a—a—whatever Corilapulus is within any old sword, I’d bet. Even if you are a Qunari.”

“The Herald uses a bow.”

“Even worse. Piss off.”

“Len?” The woman kicks the young man—Len—under the table. “I didn’t spend my last copper so you could stare at it.”

“I—right. Thank you, Vex. I know. Sorry, I’m just. Thinking.”

“A little late to regret anything _now_.”

Len winces. “I’m not. It’s just—my uncle, he’s a Warden. I couldn’t not read the—it was _right there_. I had to know.”

“What did you think the Inquisitor was marching an army to Adamant for? To have tea?”

“Lay off, Takik,” says Vex, “we _still_ don’t know everything. I remember the blight, and the Wardens who saved us from it. There was nothing overblown or false about it, and anyone saying otherwise can kiss my boots. The Wardens are the _good guys_.”

“It’s all that Coriphiwhat’s fault,” slurs Takik. “I bet it is. The Inquisitor better give him what-for, and soon. Else I may just say, fuck it all. And march off and do it myself.”

“I’m sure that’ll be just what it takes. You, and your butter knife.”

Takik splutters with offense. “It’s a perfectly respectable knife.”

Their banter is tiresome, but Fenris cannot help but listen.

 _Corypheus_.

Varric wrote Fenris of his apparent return and the attack on Haven, yet the proof of it out of someone else’s mouth—however mispronounced—feels like a sword pommel to the temple.

Dog bumps her cool nose against Fenris’ hand. She stares at him with too much comprehension and concern in her gaze. Fenris shakes his head at her subtly, though he’s feeling suddenly dizzy.

Abandoning his work, hunting Tevinter slavers and Venatori moving south through Starkhaven and the Free Marches hunting for refugees to pray upon, was a choice he made with great difficulty. But it was not one made without cause.

“It’s the waiting that’s killing me,” Len says heavily. “Adamant is... _weeks_ from Skyhold. The siege could last days—could _have_ , maybe—and—”

“And then some poor sod has to haul ass out of there to get word back,” Vex agrees.

“All Thedas’ gone mad.” Takik says, with the air of a self-important scholar. “Andraste sending a fucking Qunari down to save the world. Idiots running around with crystals out their ears, and Wardens summoning demons. What’s next?”

What next, indeed.

Fenris leaves them to their gossip. There is not much more to it, in the end, than piecemeal information apparently plucked from private missives, and fluff. Talk of a siege at Adamant was news to him, but no more than what Hawke and Varric had implied. The Inquisition’s standing army would rival that of any nation and possesses twice the zeal, a fact that turns Fenris’ stomach, if he’s honest.

By dawn the rain has stopped, but the sky above is still grey sheet of stormclouds, threatening to reopen. As Fenris steps out the tavern door, a strong wind stirs his hair and cloak and mud squelches under his feet.

He sets a brisk pace, following the faded road signs at Teodren’s main intersection by turning right onto the Imperial Highway. They will follow it until Gherlen’s Pass to move at speed.

Dog makes an inquiring whuffing noise.

“Four days now,” Fenris reminds her. “If we move quickly.”

Eyes narrowed, she moves a pace ahead of him. She is as fast and ferocious now in her advancing age as Fenris has ever known her to be. More than a match for Fenris, and he is humbled still to have been deemed worthy of her companionship.

Several hours into their march, Dog’s nose flies into the air, sniffing. Out of habit, Fenris’ hand goes to the hilt of his sword, fingers sliding along the familiar metal and leather.

They’ve passed other travelers: merchant wagons, simple travelers. A few Inquisition forces passed, acting escort for a host of refugees and local nobility returning from whence they came. One had paused, to warn Fenris of a group of Venatori rumored to have been seen but a few miles off.

“Venatori?” Fenris asks.

In answer, Dog’s head snaps left.  She snarls, low, exposing her teeth.

Fenris’ fingers curl more securely around the sword’s hilt, and he scans the side of the road—lined by the hills and rock and trees that make up the landscape, here. Standing in the middle of the road, Fenris feels uncomfortably exposed. Goosepimples rise along his arms.

Nothing moves, and there is no sound—not of moving feet, or metal scraping on a scabbard, and no telltale chanting. Until the wind turns, and from over the crest of a hill Fenris makes out a faint cry and then, louder, what might be wood splintering under great force. A burst of red-orange light reflects off the low-lying grey clouds.

They’ve been engaged already, it seems. Whether by an unsavory rival, the Inquisition, or someone else is difficult to know.

Dog is watching him out the corner of her eye, her look keen and anticipatory.

Skyhold is so close, now. The concern that has dogged his steps for months has, over the past hundred miles or so, steadily mounted and begun to fester. Still, far be it for Fenris to snub his nose at the opportunity to wet his blade with Venatori blood—it may even do him good. A reprieve, of a sort, from the circular thoughts that have worn grooves into his mind of late.

Fenris rolls onto the balls of his feet. Dog wags her stump of a tail.

“Let’s see if there are any left for us,” Fenris says, and they take off at a run.

**Author's Note:**

> DA2 is home to my favorite ensemble cast, and this fic serves as a sort of humble tribute to them. Expect a shifting POV, lots of cameos, a series of ~~unfortunate~~ convoluted events, D&D magic system bleed-through, and a boat-load of found family feelings. ♡
> 
> (Only POV characters get their own tags, and there will be more of them in time.)


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